‘Nash, what do we do?’ Tyler asked, his throat dry as he watched the immense predator come out of the gloom. ‘Nash, can you hear me?’
‘Don’t do anything. Don’t react. Don’t move. Put your back against the nearest hull and wait.’
‘Wait? Are you insane?’
‘He’s likely not interested in you. He seems curious about the drones.’
‘It’s coming towards us, Dad,’ Liam said, the arrogant man replaced by a frightened boy.
‘Do as I say. Don’t move, and for Christ’s sake, stay calm. It will sense your fear.’
‘Sense our fear? It’s not a damn psychic,’ Liam blurted, close to losing control.
‘He’s right,’ Tyler said, recalling the parts of the book Nash had given him. ‘Sharks sense electromagnetic pulses in their prey when they are distressed. You don’t want this thing to see you as a viable meal.’
‘Meal? That thing would swallow us whole.’
‘Then do as I say and don’t move,’ Nash hissed, causing the microphone to crackle.
The Megalodon cruised past them, the pressure as it displaced the water pushing them back against the hull of the sunken boat. Tyler had never experienced terror in such a pure form. It surged through him, his stomach light and rolling as he waited to see if he was about to die. The giant shark opened its mouth, exposing its nine-inch serrated teeth, then, just as Tyler was sure he was about to be devoured, the Megalodon changed direction, more interested in the drones that were surrounding the scene as it played out.
Tyler turned towards Liam just in time to see him disappear as he swam for the surface. ‘Hey, what are you doing? We were told to stay still,’ he hissed as he watched the Megalodon drift towards the drones. If Liam heard him, he didn’t respond. He was already disappearing from view into the dark. The Megalodon had turned away from him now, leaving him on the edge of following Liam or doing as Nash had said. In the end, his instinct told him to flee, and so he kicked his legs, trying to remain calm as he ascended in pursuit of Liam.
‘What are you doing? I told you both to stay still damn it!’ Nash grunted through the mic. Tyler, like Liam, failed to respond. The riches hidden on the sea floor could stay there. He didn’t care about it anymore. All he wanted to do was to breathe fresh air and leave the domain of the monster shark, never to return. As he left the safety of the light cast by the drones, he was incredibly aware of everything going on around him. The immense isolation, the resistance of the black waters against his skin, the presence of the prehistoric giant that could, if it so chose, end his existence with little effort.
‘Damn you two, you’re ruining everything,’ Nash bellowed through the speakers. Tyler risked looking down into the artificial pool of light cast by the drones. The Megalodon was agitated and charged one of the drones. The manta moved toward it in response. There was an immense explosion as the shark’s jaws clamped down on the drone, sending it reeling away. The other drones were moving closer to the shark, but Tyler was aware his pace was slowing and he was desperate to get back to the surface. He turned his attention to the opaque mass above him and swam into is, legs tiring as he kicked towards the surface.
He came up twenty feet off the port side of the boat. Liam was already climbing the ladder on the transom. Tyler swam for the ladder, wanting to get there before father and son decided to leave without him. He was exhausted, his legs heavy from the exertion. He gripped the steel rung, pulling himself out of the water, his feet scrambling for purchase on the wet rungs. On the deck, Nash was pacing, clearly agitated. Liam was on all fours, breathing hard.
‘What the hell was that?’ Tyler said as he yanked off his mask and tossed it across the deck. ‘You fucking left me down there.’
Nash glared at them both then stared at the console which showed the red blip approaching. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done. It followed you, you assholes, it followed—’
The boat exploded from the rear, splintering into fragments as the prehistoric missile slammed into it from the rear. Tyler was launched into the air, arms flailing, unaware that he was screaming. An image from a nature programme he had seen some years earlier popped into his mind about killer whales and the way they would toss seals into the air before they killed them. There was no time to develop the thought, because gravity had taken over and he impacted the water, hitting the surface hard and taking an impulsive breath, he swallowed in a mouthful of sea water and starting to choke, slipping beneath the surface as debris started to rain down around him for the destroyed boat. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swim or keep his head above the surface.
This is it. This is where I die.
The thought didn’t worry him as much as he thought for the simple reason that this way was better. Better than suffering in the jaws of the monster shark which was punishing them for daring to encroach on its territory. Tyler slipped under, enveloped in the black calm of unconsciousness as the chaos and destruction continued around him.
II
Nash was, in that instant, transported back thirty years. He tread water, coughing and blinking his good eye as he watched the boat begin to list to at the stern. He knew this scene. It had played out in his mind hundreds of times. The chill bite of the water, the feeling of the eternal depths below him, the groan as the boat began its journey to its final resting place. And of course, the shark. The demon from his nightmares come to life in the real world for the second time. Its massive head was out of the water, snapping at the debris spilling from the boat. Nash was mesmerised. Even though he never doubted its existence, to see it in front of him again in all its horrific glory was something beyond his ability to comprehend. Like him, it wore scars on its body, a mark of a creature that survived against all odds. It seemed they were not too dissimilar. He wondered how it would feel when it took him. If it would hurt, if he would be aware of those huge serrated teeth shredding his flesh, or if his life would just cease to exist, snuffed out in an instant. There was no fear, no conscious thought of survival, just peace that at last the lifetime of fear would be over. The shark would finish what it started all those years ago.
‘Dad, come on,’ Liam screamed from somewhere behind him. Nash ignored it. He watched the beast, his nemesis, the monster that had plagued both every waking moment and his nightmares, too, as it attacked the boat again, hurrying its journey to join the others in the graveyard beneath the surface.
‘Dad!’ Liam screamed. Nash blinked and whatever spell that had transfixed him was broken. He looked over his shoulder at his son, who was already out of the water and in the Zodiac. He had the unconscious Tyler under the arms and was struggling to pull him out of the water. ‘Swim, you’ve got to swim over and help me. I can’t pull him out on my own.’
Nash heard him, but in his mind, he was thirty years younger. ‘Huddle together. Keep still and in a pack,’ someone had shouted. Too young to argue and too afraid to wonder if the command was right or wrong, the young Nash had complied. They all did. Even when the water turned red and they were picked off in threes and fours.
‘Dad, goddamn it,’ Liam screamed, snapping Nash back to the present. ‘I’m letting him go, I’m coming to get you.’
‘No,’ Nash screamed, paddling towards the Zodiac. ‘Don’t do that.’ He swam to the Zodiac, all the time waiting for the beast to claim him, and in doing so, close the thread of that particular story. Nash arrived at the side of the zodiac, the yellow inflatable bobbing on the surface. Nash tried to climb out, but his broken body was too weak for him to pull himself over onto the boat.